[justdesserts]

What does dependency in therapy look like? Can someone give me an example? My t says he's concerned I may be becoming dependent, but I don't feel dependent. Maybe I don't know what it looks like or feels like though.

Second, what does it mean when you say that you love your therapist? That they're important to you? that you value their opinion? What else? What does it mean when (if) they say it to you?

Thanks for any input. I'm wrestling with some tough questions.

Why is T concerned. Whatever happens in therapy is THE WORK.

[Focus62]

I can't comment on the love stuff but as far as dependency goes, I think it looks like borderline obsession with T. Thinking about them all the time, emailing/texting all the time, and overall just feeling like you can't function everyday without being in touch with them somehow. I am the queen of not attaching/independence though, so I could be wrong...

Originally Posted by justdesserts

What does dependency in therapy look like? Can someone give me an example? My t says he's concerned I may be becoming dependent, but I don't feel dependent. Maybe I don't know what it looks like or feels like though.

Second, what does it mean when you say that you love your therapist? That they're important to you? that you value their opinion? What else? What does it mean when (if) they say it to you?

Thanks for any input. I'm wrestling with some tough questions.

On the dependency issue, I'd say that it looks something like this: an intense, increasingly felt need to see or be in contact with your therapist. For example, you have a session and leave and feel as though you want to see the therapist again, right away (pretty normal), but the need doesn't go away after a few hours or a day, it just increases and gets more and more demanding. It begins to crowd out all your other thoughts and interfers with you daily functioning. You text, call or email on a daily basis and if you are restricted from this action, you feel panicky and rejected (some therapist allow this kind of contact and the client does feel less panic). You feel unable to make day to day decisions without your therapist's input. You feel the need to ask for more and more frequent "emergency" sessions. You find yourself unable to "self-soothe" between sessions and seek out your therapist's reassurance. Some therapists are really good at managing these feelings, encouraging contact but keeping firm boundaries so that things don't get out of control. They might give the client a tape with their voice on it helping the client self-soothe when in distress. Some will use short phone calls with "coaching" type advice to get the client to be more pro-active in effectively using their skills to calm him/herself when upset or dealing with a tough issue.

Of course, many of these feelings can be felt by ANY client in the midst of a really intense period of therapy and it isn't about getting too dependent. It can simply be part of that client's process and if the therapist responds appropriately and with a calm, rational but empathetic manner, the client can move successfully through this rough period with some real healing under his/her belt. I think the important thing you might want to do is ask for very SPECIFIC examples from your therapist regarding what HE sees as signs of you becoming too dependent. I think this is particularly important because you aren't feeling the same way about your level of dependency in regard to therapy. Often therapist's forget that they can have counter-transference and their discomfort in a particular situation is some of their OWN stuff getting in the way. Perhaps he has some of his own issues regarding dependency. Some therapists really get the hebbie jebbies when they think a client is coming too close and they chalk it up to being the client's issues when it's actually something he/she needs to own. Talk with him about his perceptions of your dependency behaviors and then give him your perception. If after considering what he says and comparing it to how you feel and you still don't feel that dependency is getting to be a troublesome issue for you, I'd definitely encourage you to challenge his thoughts. Sometimes I think we're too ready to allow therapists to have the controls/decision in these types of issues and we don't trust our own instincts. Good luck!

PS I'll leave the "love" issue to others to explain because I have to admit that I've never felt that particular feeling in my therapy experience and wouldn't be much help in that department.

[Pennster]

I love my therapist (but I feel like I love a lot of people, and I think in reading on here I have come to realize I might define love more broadly than many? Not sure). To me it just means we have a very warm connection and I trust him to treat me well and to be there to help me. We have great kindness in our hearts for each other. He is important to me, yes. I'm not sure I'd say valuing his opinion is a huge part of it for me- sometimes I think he's wrong, for example. I do value the way he works, though I'm not sure that's a huge part of the love thing for me.

I don't think my therapist would ever tell me he loves me, but I feel very much like he does, and I suspect he loves most or all of his clients. (If he were to say otherwise, I would think its not because he doesn't love me or his other clients as I define love, but that he defines love differently. I don't feel very inclined to get too hung up on the definition, so I'm content with that.)

He uses compassion in his work and he's a big ol' Buddhist, so I feel like he's got the compassionate love thing down. And I feel like the compassion he shows toward me helps me to soften my own attitudes toward myself, and to be less critical and less ashamed of myself.

[peaches100]

Wow, Jaybird! That's the best description I've ever read. That's very helpful to me too! Thanks!

[stopdog]

I think those guys constantly move the ball. The ones I see keep going on about me not being dependent enough - others of those guys apparently set the field up so clients become dependent then chastise the client for doing so. And rarely do any of them explain anything about it (in fact, some of their literature and texts teach being deliberately unclear) so the client is left floundering and confused and shamed.

I have no idea about love and therapy as it does not come up for me.

[justdesserts]

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

On the dependency issue, I'd say that it looks something like this: an intense, increasingly felt need to see or be in contact with your therapist. For example, you have a session and leave and feel as though you want to see the therapist again, right away (pretty normal), but the need doesn't go away after a few hours or a day, it just increases and gets more and more demanding. It begins to crowd out all your other thoughts and interfers with you daily functioning. You text, call or email on a daily basis and if you are restricted from this action, you feel panicky and rejected (some therapist allow this kind of contact and the client does feel less panic). You feel unable to make day to day decisions without your therapist's input. You feel the need to ask for more and more frequent "emergency" sessions. You find yourself unable to "self-soothe" between sessions and seek out your therapist's reassurance. Some therapists are really good at managing these feelings, encouraging contact but keeping firm boundaries so that things don't get out of control. They might give the client a tape with their voice on it helping the client self-soothe when in distress. Some will use short phone calls with "coaching" type advice to get the client to be more pro-active in effectively using their skills to calm him/herself when upset or dealing with a tough issue.

Of course, many of these feelings can be felt by ANY client in the midst of a really intense period of therapy and it isn't about getting too dependent. It can simply be part of that client's process and if the therapist responds appropriately and with a calm, rational but empathetic manner, the client can move successfully through this rough period with some real healing under his/her belt. I think the important thing you might want to do is ask for very SPECIFIC examples from your therapist regarding what HE sees as signs of you becoming too dependent. I think this is particularly important because you aren't feeling the same way about your level of dependency in regard to therapy. Often therapist's forget that they can have counter-transference and their discomfort in a particular situation is some of their OWN stuff getting in the way. Perhaps he has some of his own issues regarding dependency. Some therapists really get the hebbie jebbies when they think a client is coming too close and they chalk it up to being the client's issues when it's actually something he/she needs to own. Talk with him about his perceptions of your dependency behaviors and then give him your perception. If after considering what he says and comparing it to how you feel and you still don't feel that dependency is getting to be a troublesome issue for you, I'd definitely encourage you to challenge his thoughts. Sometimes I think we're too ready to allow therapists to have the controls/decision in these types of issues and we don't trust our own instincts. Good luck!

PS I'll leave the "love" issue to others to explain because I have to admit that I've never felt that particular feeling in my therapy experience and wouldn't be much help in that department.

Thank you for your interpretation of dependency! That is how it looks in my mind, too. I don't email more than once or twice a month and never expect (or get) a response. Texting is about the same, but he usually responds with a sentence. This is very much decreased from before. He wants to move from three sessions in a two-week period, to once a week in case I might be becoming dependent. After 18 months at twice a week, and three months at the current the schedule, part of me wonders if there's something inside of him that is triggered by me that makes him want to caretake me, even though I don't ask for it. I guess time will tell.

[justdesserts]

Originally Posted by Pennster

I love my therapist (but I feel like I love a lot of people, and I think in reading on here I have come to realize I might define love more broadly than many? Not sure). To me it just means we have a very warm connection and I trust him to treat me well and to be there to help me. We have great kindness in our hearts for each other. He is important to me, yes. I'm not sure I'd say valuing his opinion is a huge part of it for me- sometimes I think he's wrong, for example. I do value the way he works, though I'm not sure that's a huge part of the love thing for me.

I don't think my therapist would ever tell me he loves me, but I feel very much like he does, and I suspect he loves most or all of his clients. (If he were to say otherwise, I would think its not because he doesn't love me or his other clients as I define love, but that he defines love differently. I don't feel very inclined to get too hung up on the definition, so I'm content with that.)

He uses compassion in his work and he's a big ol' Buddhist, so I feel like he's got the compassionate love thing down. And I feel like the compassion he shows toward me helps me to soften my own attitudes toward myself, and to be less critical and less ashamed of myself.

This is a beautiful description of thee love that takes place in therapy. Thanks for putting into words what I couldn't.

[SkyBlueSue]

With my first therapist for PTSD I became too dependent, so much so, one day I saw her out with her daughter and became so jealous that I couldn't think straight, and didn't want to see her for sessions the next week (sessions were 3X wk). As far as I was concerned, she was my "mom", and right then I knew I was heading for trouble.

I didn't love her as much as I craved her as a mother. She was the mother I never had, someone who finally listened to me and someone finally who didn't yell. But I became so ill, went into a deep depression, she was way over her head treating me for PTSD that we parted therapy. It can be an unhealthy relationship, but when you are so needy for love and empathy you never as a child, it feels so comforting when someone reaches out to you with interest asking you to tell them more.

[spring2014]

Originally Posted by justdesserts

What does dependency in therapy look like? Can someone give me an example? My t says he's concerned I may be becoming dependent, but I don't feel dependent. Maybe I don't know what it looks like or feels like though.

Second, what does it mean when you say that you love your therapist? That they're important to you? that you value their opinion? What else? What does it mean when (if) they say it to you?

Thanks for any input. I'm wrestling with some tough questions.

hi justdesserts,
Dependency in therapy looks like if you have a problem or a feeling that's been bothering you and you used the coping skills that your therapist gave you and their not working you call your therapist for every little thing that's bugging you can't cope with it that is dependency in therapy .the second question about loving your therapist is that your therapist is supporting you in therapy and that he or she is happy with your progress in therapy.



Diagnosis: Anxiety and depression
meds: Cymbalta 60 mgs at night
Vistrail 2 25 mgs daily for anxiety prn
50 mgs at night for insomnia with an additional 25 mgs=75 mgs when up past 1:00 in the morning

[Depletion]

I love my therapist a lot. I have not had a lot of people in my life who I have been able to really feel love for, so loving her feels important to me. For me the love is a lot about the feelings of safety and trust that I feel in therapy. I have come to feel (after several years) that my therapist won't abandon me. I also trust her increasingly to take good care of me, and I feel like I'm very important to her. But I would have to say that I love her most of all for the things that she has given me that I have never had--a place to have my emotions heard and validated, a place to be myself, and a place to make some pretty big mistakes.

When I first started therapy I told my therapist that I had a history of getting obsessed with mother figures, and I had even done things like ride my bike past one of the houses where one of these women lived. About a year in to therapy was really obsessed with T (and she knew all about it), and I sent her an email telling her that my feelings had gotten really out of control, and that I was thinking about finding her house. I sent her the email hoping that she would do something to stop me. She wrote back and told me not to do what I was thinking (and I didn't). Months latter she told me that me wanting to find her house came up in supervision, and that a lot of people had been against her continuing to see me as a client. She felt differently, and told me that she thought I had contacted her because I wanted help (she was right). Knowing that she would protect me like this made me feel very loved and very important to her. I'm so glad she was able to tolerate what was likely a very difficult situation for her, and take care of me. I love her very much for this, it makes me feel like she is really just a sort of exceptional human in some re guards. I can't imagine therapy with anyone else.

[naia]

Leonard Cohen. Nice quote. He wrote/sang: "Ring the bells that still can rind, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, in everything, that's how the light gets in." For those of us with a "crack" (trauma), this reminds us that what we may see as a fault may be an opening. There is another quote from an anonymous source, Quaker I think: "Blessed be the brokenhearted, for in being so, they may open the heart of the Universe." Old time language, Christian, but kinda Buddhist too.

Dependency is something that depends on your beliefs--spiritual and cultural. Many if not most cultures and spiritual backgrounds see "interdependence" as normal, healthy, accepted and so on.

Westerners are kinda unusual in a belief that we are all supposed to be independent, individualistic, without needs, without feelings for others. Like a John Wayne character in an old movie.

Some therapies encourage "dependency" as a stage actively sought out to develop trust deeply, get to very core issues, work them through, regress even, but not stay there. Only a step, maybe a long process of steps.

I don't really get why people worry about dependency or say it is pathological. It can be, but it isn't bad on the face of it. It can be what is needed at the time. It can be painful and awkward and cause problems. So sure, concern about it is fine.

But anyone who just says it is flat out wrong doesn't understand that there is a process that sometimes requires some dependence. We are social primates. We need each other. We are hard-wired to connect, to depend. How could that be seen as anything but what humans do?

[Chummy]

I don't know about love in therapie. I don't love my T.

But about dependency. My T is also worried I'm too dependent on her. She had already been concerned somewhere in the first few months of therapy that we should be on the look out that I don't get too dependent on her (I had already been in therapy with her before). According to my therepist I'm now too dependent on her and she sayd I place her on a pedestal.
I don't send her a lot of email. There has gone by months without emails. I never call her. I have never asked for an extra session. I do think a lot about her and our therapy. I'm worried about what she thinks of me. I want to be her favorite client and to find me more important than her other clients. I don't want to quit therapy with her before I'm ready to quit therapy all together. But since she's pregnant, I'm going to lose her as a T and I'll need a new T. And I'm in so much stress and anxiety about that. Also because she has been the only T who was good for me, I'm so afraid to try a new T. Afraid that new T will be not good or even bad and everything will go to hell again.

When I whined about being too needy with my therapist , and I whined lots, my therapist said there is NO such thing as being too needy. You need what you need, and she was willing to meet my needs and wants as best she good in the therapeutic frame. The needs and wants subsided and therapy worked its self out and eventually we terminated.

[BayBrony]

My T has always normalized my dependency. She says "if you've never felt seen, never felt heard, never felt loved and then you do of course you will want it!! You will want as much of it as you can get! That's a normal feeling, just like its normal for small children to go through an age where they cling to their caregivers. No one took care of you. Of course you want more. It's GOOD that you want more! It means your heart is open to love."

But she also emphasizes her own limitations and what she can and can't do. She gives me meditations or rituals to do when I feel overly needy. I also have several transitional objects I use for comfort. She emphasizes that the connection between us does not rely on physical proximity.

I do love her and she loves me also.

I don't understand when I hear "too dependent". If I or NY T feel I'm not coping well we try to explore what I do need in order to cope. I feel like Ts who say "too Dependant" are missing the whole point.

My T also laid out the "deal breakers" that could result in termination. Very small list. Physical violence, showing up at her house, making threats----things I could never imagine doing anyway ( I do know where she lives because its not far from the yoga studio where she teaches ). It was comforting to know where the limits are though.

[awkwardlyyours]

I totally agree with folks who said that it might help if you ask your T exactly what he means by 'dependent' -- describe specific behaviors, things said and so on.

And yeah, I tend to agree with what stopdog said about T's going on about either too little or too much dependence and never actually defining it -- it's frustrating.

And honestly, I'm more and more inclined to believe that an emphasis on talking about dependence or the lack of it (especially among those who emphasize the 'relationship' between T and client as well) is a bit of a power-play on their part (not terribly malicious or even very conscious but...).

[Cinnamon_Stick]

I agree with other posters that dependency can be good and bad. It can be good because you can learn from it and learn why you feel you need your T so much and hopefully you can work through it. It can be bad if it gets out of control (daily contact, showing up at there house, not being able to use the stuff you learn in therapy to help between sessions) but a good T would be able to help you understand it and work through it.

I love my T very much. I love how she makes me feel and I love the connection and relationship we have. I love her because she really cares about me. She has shown through her actions that she cares and has my best interest at heart. She also gives me something I never had, a safe place to talk and explore my feelings with no judgment. She gives me the comfort I never had in a very safe and healthy way. I also love her personality and how much she really cares about people. She was meant to be a T.

[Hopelesspoppy]

Originally Posted by Pennster

I love my therapist (but I feel like I love a lot of people, and I think in reading on here I have come to realize I might define love more broadly than many? Not sure). To me it just means we have a very warm connection and I trust him to treat me well and to be there to help me. We have great kindness in our hearts for each other. He is important to me, yes. I'm not sure I'd say valuing his opinion is a huge part of it for me- sometimes I think he's wrong, for example. I do value the way he works, though I'm not sure that's a huge part of the love thing for me.

I don't think my therapist would ever tell me he loves me, but I feel very much like he does, and I suspect he loves most or all of his clients. (If he were to say otherwise, I would think its not because he doesn't love me or his other clients as I define love, but that he defines love differently. I don't feel very inclined to get too hung up on the definition, so I'm content with that.)

He uses compassion in his work and he's a big ol' Buddhist, so I feel like he's got the compassionate love thing down. And I feel like the compassion he shows toward me helps me to soften my own attitudes toward myself, and to be less critical and less ashamed of myself.

I want your therapist....never forget how truly fortunate you are, although hanging around here I am guessing you already know...

[Hopelesspoppy]

Originally Posted by justdesserts

Thank you for your interpretation of dependency! That is how it looks in my mind, too. I don't email more than once or twice a month and never expect (or get) a response. Texting is about the same, but he usually responds with a sentence. This is very much decreased from before. He wants to move from three sessions in a two-week period, to once a week in case I might be becoming dependent. After 18 months at twice a week, and three months at the current the schedule, part of me wonders if there's something inside of him that is triggered by me that makes him want to caretake me, even though I don't ask for it. I guess time will tell.

With what you've written, I think that your theory may be correct. It sounds like projection on his part. You are absolutely and easily within perfectly acceptable bounds in terms of your expectations of him. I hate that he has planted that seed in your head.
If this is going to affect you and make you feel insecure about initiating reasonable contact outside of sessions, you should reconsider looking elsewhere if that is a possibility - either that or confront him with it.

I hope you can ask your therapist what he means and you can talk this out with him. I would have been pretty upset and scared if my therapist had ever said that to me (and worried).

[divine1966]

I think dependency is inability to make decisions or function without t. Some people have to ask t about every single thing before making every decision. Also unable to function if therapist is out of town or sick etc refusing to accept they have a life.

Don't know about love.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by naia

But anyone who just says it is flat out wrong doesn't understand that there is a process that sometimes requires some dependence. We are social primates. We need each other. We are hard-wired to connect, to depend. How could that be seen as anything but what humans do?

I'd say the sort of dependency that sometimes develops in therapy can be flat out wrong. Seems that kind of intense neediness and even addictive clinging is appropriate between infant and mother, but between an adult and a paid professional? I dunno. For me it was disaster. I experienced both significant dependency and obsessive and torturous love for my T. Only thing she could think to do was terminate.

When people talk about entering into these scenarios in therapy, makes me very nervous for them. Raises many questions:
- What is the plan and what is the methodology for containment?
- What happens if it becomes unworkable?
- Who is the therapist, who are they really, and can you trust them with something so serious?

I agree about social needs and interdependence, but I have a problem seeing therapist-client relationship in that context. Seems like a weird laboratory version of a real relationship.

[naia]

I did say that it can be wrong, just not absolutely wrong across the board. There are therapies that do use the relationship between the infant and mother as a model, as attachment, which is scientifically proven regardless of orientation. We still carry that infant inside, especially in therapy. Just because we are adults or the T is a paid professional does not erase our basic needs for connection.

For some therapies there is a plan and method. Depends. And there is also a way to contain and correct mistakes or misunderstandings. Some T's are very transparent. That is also confirmed by studies. The more transparent the process and the T is, the fewer misunderstandings and mistakes.

I'm not sure why the T relationship is not part of the human social world and interdependence? They are people too. They have needs too. They meet with people to try to help in many cases. Trust is essential to the process. Without trust, nothing can happen.

If there is a break in trust, it is the job of the T to figure out what went wrong, to do something to correct it, and if not able to, then to refer out. Sadly, I sense that is what happened, very badly for you.

But to generalize that it is always that way, will always be that way, that therapy is some sort of non-relationship, a lab experiment...not sure.

I know you have been hurt badly; don't mean to minimize what happened. Trying instead to say that this doesn't always happen, not all T's are like that.

If it is a lab, it is a place to try out different kinds of ways of being with people when doing that in real life isn't safe or even possible. I don't see that as weird. I see it as an opportunity to try out things and not worry about how it affects the T because they are professionals so can't do what real people do, which is for me mean, destructive, harmful, and traumatic.

The space that a T holds is safe and if not it's time to stop, reflect, see if there can be changes, otherwise leaving is the only way to be safe. Safety comes first. Then trust.

There are times when there are unsafe feelings but that can be part of the process. Again it really depends on what is going on, what the issues are, who your T is, what the approach it.

Try looking up Control Mastery, which is about "tests" that a T must pass to gain safety and trust. Other therapies also focus on this type of thing, mostly modern psychodynamic, like interpersonal, or intersubjective, or relational, or Middle School. They all use real infant neuroscience and studies to work with attachment and other human needs so basic to us.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by naia

There are therapies that do use the relationship between the infant and mother as a model, as attachment, which is scientifically proven regardless of orientation.

Do you mean theories about attachment are scientifically proven, or the associated therapy methods? I have read up on attachment theory; I find it interesting and totally relevant. But as for what therapists purport to do with this in the clinical setting, I have little or no idea. I have never heard one explain their method nor appear to even have one. It seems largely or entirely improvised.

Originally Posted by naia

For some therapies there is a plan and method. Depends. And there is also a way to contain and correct mistakes or misunderstandings. Some T's are very transparent. That is also confirmed by studies. The more transparent the process and the T is, the fewer misunderstandings and mistakes.

I've met few Ts who were transparent. Most were largely opaque. How could a study show T transparency? I don't understand. One guy I asked what specifically would happen in the room. His answer was so vague that it was a non-answer. I pressed again. He thought this was odd and suggested we should not work together.

Originally Posted by naia

I'm not sure why the T relationship is not part of the human social world and interdependence? They are people too. They have needs too. They meet with people to try to help in many cases. Trust is essential to the process. Without trust, nothing can happen.

How can you trust someone whose job it is to significantly limit what they share about themselves? Trust is built on shared disclosure, shared vulnerability. Seems what clients get with T's is the an approximation of trust. I trusted my last main ex T, and then she betrayed that trust. The problem was that I simply did not know the person I was expected to trust. I only got a heavily filtered version of her.

Originally Posted by naia

If it is a lab, it is a place to try out different kinds of ways of being with people when doing that in real life isn't safe or even possible. I don't see that as weird. I see it as an opportunity to try out things and not worry about how it affects the T because they are professionals so can't do what real people do, which is for me mean, destructive, harmful, and traumatic.

My T was not mean, but she was most definitely destructive, harmful, and traumatic. Again, not uncommon based on my reading. The power imbalance is a breeding ground for abusive or exploitive dynamics.

Not trying to be argumentative, but the ideal that you describe I have never experienced and seems unlikely given that T's are regular people who are just as screwed up as the rest of us. Not saying it's all bad, just trying for a realistic assessment of the biz. There seems to be a huge gap between what is advertised and what is actually on offer.